Vanina is part of the deal, but since she’s already off the books, she doesn’t need any engineering. Her fake passport as Polina Igrok will serve her for the trip, and after that, she will be Vanina Vokhtazin, again and forever.
It’s good that she doesn’t need any paperwork to join me, because that means I can keep it all a surprise. I want to see her face when I tell her what’s the reason we’re going to Panama. She thinks it’s only an everyday thing that we can also use as a vacation.
I wish Tara would have told me that she could press the button right away. But there’s one more step before we can do that. Panama. There are papers to sign, people who talk to. Tara has made a list of all the paperwork I need to do there. Only then I will have my second chance. The chance Rhonda snatched away from me years ago.
Incidentally, that’s also the reason that Tara is so important to me. Right now, she’s the only one who could make it true. Talk about job security.
“Is that all?” Tara asks, leaving her beer on the table, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I’ve essentially put my life in her hands.
“It’s all. Thanks. Take care,” I say, waving her goodbye.
She’s already out of the room when I speak again.
“Tara,” I call.
She comes back and leans on the doorframe, waiting.
“Yes?”
“What if you had the chance to start again?”
“What do you mean? The button?”
“Exactly.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Ace, I’m twenty-nine. I’m just starting. No need to start again.”
“You’re twenty-nine, and people want to poison you already.”
She stays silent, her gaze lingering on some indeterminate point outside the window.
“OK, I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you.”
She leaves for good. Jack enters almost immediately, not before ogling her ass as she walks down the corridor.
“Hey,” he says. He takes a cigarette from somewhere and lights it. He offers me one and I refuse. Instead, I chug the rest of my beer.
“Hey,” I reply. “Let me ask you a question, Jack, since you’re too old for this shit.”
A grin appears on his face. “Fire,” he says, pointing at his own chest with both hands as he exhales a cloud of bluish smoke.
“What if you had the chance to start again?”
26. A TRIP TO PANAMA
VAN
“Paperwork”, Ace said when I asked him why he was going to Panama. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be tourists too.”
“We? Am I going with you?”
“Of course. I’d go with you anywhere”, he said, kissing me tenderly. But I knew there was more. He had been on the phone a lot lately, gathering info about the Chinese and other things. He feared for my safety, I could see that even though he did his best not to mention anything to me.
I am fairly certain about the kind of paperwork he’s going to do in Panama. The country is a well-known fiscal paradise, and I guess he needs to move around some offshore assets. The fact that he will be travelling in person suggests that he will do a pretty big move. I don’t know if I should be afraid or hopeful. It may be that the feds are on his tracks... or even worse, that the Chinese, or even the Bratva, are. But on the other hand, it may mean that he wants a change of direction; that he wants to come clean somehow, and take out part of his properties so that he can get leave all this mess behind. With me. The thought makes my heart race, but I can’t find the courage to ask him. I am still a little girl in many ways.
So, we’re heading for LaGuardia again. I have a first-class ticket to the name of POLINA IGROK and a fairly small travel suitcase filled mainly with books. We’ll be there for a couple of weeks, and we’ve had so little time to prepare for the trip that I don’t know what I’ll be doing or where we’ll be going. For me, books are always a safe bet.
“We’re on time,” Ace announces as he takes the Grand Central Parkway, checking on the mirror that Harlan and his mate are following us in their own car. The road is pretty loaded, and it would be easy to get split in traffic. One of those huge trucks used by moving companies is chugging along before us, and cars speed past us on both sides.
I would have preferred Jack Starr instead of this other guy, but Jack is in charge of protecting Tara, so Harlan took one of the new recruits with him.
“Don’t worry, Ace,” I tell him. “We’ll make it. We have plenty of time, for the trip and for whatever comes after it.”
He looks at me as if I were something precious.
“Things will change, I promise you,” he says. “Once we come back...”
But things change right now. One of the cars speeding ahead of us makes a sudden turn and stops in the middle of the lane. Another car does the same a couple of seconds later, blocking the way completely. Ace has to turn the steering wheel violently and almost loses control of the car. He turns to the right, then to the left, and steps on the brake until the Mercedes comes to a halt with a screeching sound.
Behind us, Harlan stops too. And behind him, two more cards stop dead on the road as well, blocking our escape both ways.
Two men step down each of the cars that are trapping us ahead. They all look Eastern, they all wear impeccable white suits and, of course, they all hold guns. One of them shouts something in what sounds like Chinese. I think he says Ace Hurt’s name among all the gibberish.
Ace grabs my hand and gives it a brief squeeze. “Head down,” he says. His voice is so calm and authoritative that I almost stop worrying. I crouch as tight as I can and put my arms over my head as Ace grabs his gun from below the driver’s seat.
“Oh, no, no,” I try to warn him, but he’s already opened the door. the car is a shield between him and the men who point their weapons at him. Who is in the passenger side, right in the trajectory of the bullets if they start firing? This gal. I’m worried again, more for Ace than for myself.
Ace starts talking out loud. He’s speaking Chinese, making ample gestures with his left hand that everyone can see, while his gun is in his right hand, out of sight for everyone but me.
As soon as he finishes speaking, the Chinese man replies angrily. Ace answers in a cool, calm tone. I have no idea what they’re saying, but when he gives me a quick look, as if he were saying goodbye, I realize that he’s trying to protect me. He wants to convince them to let me go and take only him. I can imagine the words: Let her go. She has no part in this. And I understand that the only thing that can make this man afraid is the chance that I come to harm.
They seem to have reached some kind of agreement, because the Chinese now speaks as sharply as before but not as angrily. He waves his free hand and points at Harlan’s car.
“You two, step out,” Ace commands. “Calmly.”
Harlan gets off his car, holding his gun but pointing it down at the road. His companion does the same. Behind them, a second line of white-clad Eastern men keep watch.
But then things change again. I am the first to see.
The moving truck that was travelling ahead of us had stopped a quarter mile down the road when the Chinese blocked the way. All of us had forgotten about it. Now it’s speeding backwards like hell.
It smashes against the two cars and sends them flying to the sides, trampling some of the Chinese men, killing them instantly. The others turn around and try to do something, but the truck runs over two of them and the rest scatter around.
The other Chinese men in the back go mad and start firing their guns. Ace jumps into the car and closes the door. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It’s bulletproof.” I’m about to lock my own door when I see something that makes me freeze in horror.
Harlan Pike is standing in the middle of the road, still looking ahead, his gun still pointing down, but now there is a red stain on his white shirt. The red is quickly growing as he starts to realize what’s happened. He’s looking ahead when his legs
weaken and he starts wobbling, drops his gun, then crumbles into the pavement.
The truck opens like a mouth and the door falls backwards, turning into a tongue that licks the road. The mouth spits out four or five motorcycles, all of them black, all of them mounted by men clad in black, with black helmets whining in the afternoon sun.
“Wh-what’s happening now?” I scream, but Ace is already out of the car again. I hear gunshots mixed with the noise from the engines.
The bikers are shooting, but not at us. They are taking down the Chinese, finishing the job the truck started when it smashed against the cars. The Chinese fire back, but they only manage to gun down one of the bikers before being dispatched, and the biker stands up again. He must be wearing a bulletproof vest.
“Ace!” I scream, because I can’t see him anymore.
I look around frantically. Everything is hell. The road is clogged behind us, but nobody’s complaining, of course. People are getting out of their cars and running down the parkway, fleeing from the scene before the gunfire resumes.
I see Ace. He’s wrestling with one of the bikers. He must have realized that bullets are useless, so he’s using a better weapon: his body. He smashes the guy’s helmet and I hear him shriek as the fragmented plastic digs into his face. Ace tries to drag the guy into the Mercedes, but the biker disengages from him and attempts to run. Ace catches him again, though, and they both fall on the road. Ace punches the guy some more as the other bikers start to realize what’s happening. One of them turns around and heads directly to where they are fighting. Ace jumps back at the last moment, though, and the biker ends up running over his buddy. I hear the noise of his ribs cracking under the weight of the motorcycle and his horrific, agonic yell.
“We need to go,” Ace says, jumping into the car again. But then my door opens and an iron hand closes around my wrist. I cry in surprise and pain before turning my head and looking at the man who’s dragging me out of the car.
“Hi,” he says. “Please come with me. I’ve missed you so much.”
Piotr!
“Noooo!” I yell at the top of my lungs. I can’t think of anything else to say. I can’t resist; he’s too strong. He drags me out of the car inch by inch, as I try to hang on to the steering wheel, the gear shift, the seat frame, whatever. It’s useless.
“Come with me!”
“NO!”
I start kicking and floundering helplessly. I’m already halfway out of the car when Ace lurches forward to get Piotr. He ends up lying above my legs, but Piotr is faster and finishes the job with a quick jerk. He climbs on his motorcycle, pulls me up and makes me sit behind him, and when Ace tries to get him, he fires a single shot and starts the bike.
I scream.
Ace drops on the pavement. He might be dead. I scream again.
The moving truck is already in motion. Piotr turns left and right to avoid the crashed cars and the corpses of the Chinese and jumps inside the truck using the door as a ramp. The rest of the bikers follow. The door closes on all of us and the last thing I see is Ace’s body lying on the pavement beside his Mercedes. Someone blindfolds me, and I keep kicking and screaming as the truck takes me to some place where happiness will never find me.
27. A ROOM WITHOUT A VIEW
VAN
I don’t know where I am. I think we’re somewhere in New York, but I can’t be sure. I can’t hear any sounds coming from the street so it must be a pretty quiet area. The room is comfortable, and if it weren’t for the locked door and window, I could pretend that I’m not being held prisoner.
But I am.
Piotr came to see me a couple of times. He said he doesn’t want to do me any harm. That I should just understand that we’re meant to be together.
“It makes no sense for you to keep rejecting me,” he said, as if he was truly developing a rational argument to its logical conclusion. “I am a pakhan now, a mob boss. Why would you be with a mob boss in New York when you have me at home?”
“This is home for me now,” I replied. So he pretended to hit me. I screamed in anticipation, but his hand stopped an inch from my face. Next time he might not stop.
The guy is truly out of touch. Can’t a girl say no? I’ve rejected him so many times that one figures he would have understood by now.
“Do you want some books, food, magazines? I can get you whatever you want, my princess.”
“I want you to fucking die.”
He walked out of the room and locked the door again. I’ve been lying on the bed for hours. From the light that enters through the crannies in the closed window, I can guess that it’s about six, with the sun getting ready to be swallowed by the sea.
I’ve been so afraid of Piotr for so long, afraid of the possibility that he could appear around a corner or in a grocery store, and now that I’m his captive, I despise him most than anything. Oh, I sure am afraid, but I fear for Ace, not for me. Can he be dead? What happened on the Grand Central surely must have made the news, but there’s no TV in this room, and Piotr won’t tell me anything about what happens outside.
“We didn’t want to kill anybody,” he told me when we were speeding along the road on the back of the moving truck. “The idea was to block your car with the truck, force Ace to stop, and then just take you. But those fucking Chinese wanted to take him. Who would have thought they would choose the exact same moment to strike?”
I don’t care about the Chinese. You killed Harlan. And you may have killed Ace too.
I’m so tired to have happiness at arm’s reach, only to be taken away from me... Part of me wishes that Piotr would just kill me and just be over with it.
But, of course, he won’t kill me. He will take me back to Russia, and marry me there, whether I want to or not.
* * *
It’s already night when he comes back to see me.
“You won’t be here for long, my princess. We leave in the morning.”
“What happened between you and Misha?”
I’ve been thinking about it. They have been friends for years, and even though Piotr was a bad influence for my brother, at least they helped each other. But last time we talked, Misha said that Piotr had forgotten him. Maybe that was the reason he’d fallen so low right when he seemed to have found a way to a normal life.
“Nothing happened. I made my way up the gangs while I kept myself clean. He took a fucking modelling job but he turned into booze and drugs again. It can’t be helped.”
“You were his friend. You could at least have tried to help him.”
“But I don’t need Misha,” Piotr says, giving me a confused look, as if I had suggested that he went to the Moon on foot. “I need you. I’ve always loved you. I came all the way from Russia, just for you.”
“You’re fucking sick.”
He pretends to hit me again. This time, I don’t even flinch.
“You don’t understand,” he says, with an irritated grimace. Then his expression switches to a hopeful smile. “But you will.”
I swear if he takes me back to Russia, I’ll kill myself at the first opportunity.
The bug is my only hope. But only if Ace is alive.
28. DESPERATE MEASURES
ACE
... Harlan. And the other guy. What was his name? I have to...
The road is cold as Antarctic ice, or maybe it’s the blood loss that makes me feel cold. I push myself up and a sharp pain shoots through my shoulder, making me crumble and fall on my face again.
“Ace!”
The voice comes from far away, but somehow he’s right above me, pulling me up. More pain, and this buzz swarming in my ears.
“Come on, Ace! This place will be full of policemen in twenty seconds.”
I look at him. Harlan’s guy. I’ve seen him, but I don’t know the first thing about him. And now Harlan’s dead.
“What’s your name, kiddo?”
“Not Kiddo, certainly,” he jokes. “I’m Paulie. Come on.”
He forces me to get in
to the car, then sits on the passenger seat. As we speed away, I try to overcome the pain in my shoulder and clear my mind.
The guy who took Van, the guy who shot me. That must be Piotr Plokhoy. I can’t know for sure but the way he talked to her made it clear that he knows her. Even though he spoke in Russian, I can guess what he told her. Back together at last, or I missed you, or something like that.
I will find them both. I will save Van, and I will kill him. Twice, if I can.
How?
Then I remember.
“The bug,” I say. “I put a bug in her clothes. We need to—”
“Don’t talk,” Paulie says. “And try not to die.” He keeps his eyes on the road, keeping his cool, focusing on the task at hand. Which right now is getting out of here and not dying.
I like Paulie. He makes sense.
* * *
Two hours and a shot of antibiotics later, I’m back home. Jack Starr stares at me with a concerned expression.
“Of course it had to be today,” he says. “Way to fuck it up for everyone. Damn foreigners.”
“Shut up, idiot. You were born in Ireland.”
“At least my name is not Ovidius,” he fires back.
He puts a grin on my face in spite of everything. “Don’t tell anyone or I kill you. Have we located her?”
“We have,” Jack says, “but we don’t have much to strike back. These guys can kick our asses.”
Or kill her as soon as we show up. “Yeah, that won’t work. We’re desperate, so we need to be humble.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we must beg,” I reply as I lean forward to grab my phone. A bolt of pain throws me back.
“Easy, champ,” Jack says, and reaches for the phone. “Don’t move or the bandage won’t hold. This is not a hospital. We’re not expert bandagists.”
“I don’t think that word exists.”
“Whatever. Who are you calling?”
Sold: A Billionaire Bad Boy Mafia Romance Page 10
